


Under His Skin Like a Blessing

by wangler



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Nogitsune Stiles, Pining Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:51:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wangler/pseuds/wangler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just after 10 pm, Stiles shows up at the loft. He's panting like it took him an hour to get up the stairs, and he's pale and wrecked and it looks like he's been crying for hours. So, nothing new.</p><p>"I need you to do something," he says. "Could you — will you help me?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under His Skin Like a Blessing

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up to Teen Wolf 3x20.
> 
> Please see the end notes for additional content labels and spoilers if you're concerned about triggering content.

Just after 10 pm, Stiles shows up at the loft. He's panting like it took him an hour to get up the stairs, and he's pale and wrecked and it looks like he's been crying for hours. So, nothing new.  
  
"I need you to do something," he says. "Could you — will you help me?"  
  
Derek stands in the doorway, bracing his arm against the frame as if that could stop Stiles. His phone is in his back pocket with an app launched and ready to text everyone in the pack with his GPS location and a coded message that more or less means the shitshow is ramping up, send help.  
  
"Is this you?" It's a stupid question, but Derek can't help asking. It gives him a sense of control — an illusion of control.  
  
Stiles gets a sad, shuttered look and nods. That could mean anything. The fox taps further and further into Stiles these days, wearing his tics and mannerisms like a silky pelt.  
  
"Are you supposed to be here?"  
  
Stiles takes a ragged breath and shakes his head. It exposes the side of his neck, and Derek can make out enough spidery, angry lines to know that he's chock full of wolf lichen. No wonder he's swaying on his feet.  
  
"If you need something why don't you ask Scott?" Derek asks, not because he doesn't want to help but because Scott wants to help so much.  
  
"I can't ask him to do this," Stiles says.  
  
Derek knows better, but knowing better has never stopped him from listening to his instincts, and right now his instincts are screaming to do whatever Stiles needs while he's enjoying a brief vacation from chaos, pain and strife.  
  
There's something lost in the way Stiles stands there, silently crying and wiping his eyes and listing like his backpack weighs a ton. It's not the faraway look he gets when he's sinking into himself and the fox is surfacing. It's different. Derek doesn't like it.  
  
"All right," he says.  
  
Stiles looks up at him, his eyes lighting up with what would have been a smile, weeks ago. The little surge of happiness passes just as quickly as it shone, and Stiles starts talking. "We have to go to the Preserve. There's a perfect place there. I — it, whatever — cased it looking for a place to stash explosives. Like a shed or something, but old. Wood, not metal. It's like six miles from the tree so I think it's safe enough, I mean, I don't know what the radius of fuckery is but I think it's safe."  
  
Derek follows him, not bothering to lock the door behind him. There are so many little things he just doesn't care about anymore.  
  
"Oh!" Stiles turns, nearly loses his balance. "Except the storm was all over, wasn't it? But that was deliberate force, and Jennifer -- sorry dude -- was definitely amping everything up. So yeah. I think it's safe."  
  
"What's safe?" Derek asks mildly. He doubts what Stiles has in mind is safe, or that Stiles will tell him the truth. A hefty dose of letharia vupina won't affect the mile-wide bullshit streak Stiles came by honestly.  
  
"You'll see."  
  
In the parking lot, Stiles drops his keys twice trying to unlock his Jeep with trembling fingers. Derek snatches the keys away away, pushes Stiles right over the driver's seat and into the passenger seat. The backpack thuds heavily in Stiles' lap, smelling like chemicals, and Derek doesn't actually want to know. He's aware that this could be a trap. The lines on Stiles' throat could be fake. His tears could be an act.  
  
Derek isn't sure what he wishes for more, so he starts the Jeep, grimacing at the engine's jumpy hum, and starts driving toward Beacon Hills Preserve.  
  
"The engine needs maintenance," Derek says.  
  
"Do you think — could you do that?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Stiles has never asked him to work on the Jeep before. Derek hits the brakes a little too firmly, feels his seat belt catch him like an embrace.    
  
At the red light, Derek glances at Stiles, sees him staring out the window and worrying at the straps of his backpack. Stiles' knuckles are bruised and scabbed up from the last time they fought.  
  
At this time of night, the roads are quiet. The outskirts of Beacon Hills have a rural vibe. Even the video store closes by nine. Derek drives safely and below the speed limit, wary of drawing additional attention to Stiles' notoriously recognizable Jeep.  
  
Stilinski probably doesn't know where his son is. Probably deserves a text, at the very least, but Derek hasn't brought himself to tell anyone that he's with Stiles. He will, probably, when Stiles finally explains why they're driving into the preserve in the middle of the night. Or he will, certainly, the first moment Stiles shows signs of slipping under.  
  
Derek can actually hear the nylon backpack straps straining — a faint squeak — as Stiles tugs and kneads them.  
  
"What are you—" he starts to ask.  
  
"I wanted to do something," Stiles says. "For Lydia. Scott. My dad." There's a thin scratchiness to his voice when he says it. Stiles' father is his blind spot, his weakness  —  and will likely be his downfall, Derek thinks. Stiles is so hell-bent on protecting him he doesn't seem to understand that he's the only thing Stilinski can't bear to lose.  
  
"But I couldn't think of anything." Stiles scratches his cheek idly, before returning to his diligent work with the backpack straps. "It's cause I'm so tired, I think. Not firing on any cylinders." He sighs and his hands go still.  
 Derek wonders if cranking the window down would clear the air of the heavy scent of unhappiness that lingers around Stiles like a chemical weapon.  
  
"They don't need you to do anything," Derek says, feeling awkward trying to give advice about the people Stiles loves. If he could wrap his words around the tender, painful spot in his gut, he'd tell Stiles that all anyone wants is for him to hang on, to keep grasping at the wispy remains of his soul.  
  
"I guess you're right," Stiles says, barely audible, as if the sadness inside of him is as poisonous as the drug that buys him rare periods of lucidity.  
  
They ride in near-silence once the Jeep hits the uneven dirt roads. Stiles mumbles directions at each crossroad, and starts trembling harder. He balls his fingers into tight fists and hugs his backpack, but Derek can still hear his teeth grinding, can see the tremors running along his arms.  
  
Stiles's heart races.  
  
Just as Derek seriously considers telling the others where they are, the headlights illuminate a rotted, tilting shed. It looks like it must have been a ranger's station of some kind, decades ago.  
  
"See?" Stiles says, more or less falling out of the passenger side door as he opens it. "I think it'll go up like a Roman candle."  
  
Derek turns off the headlights and shoves the keys into his pocket as he walks around the front bumper quickly to keep a close watch on what is guaranteed to be a terrible idea.  "We're not burning anything, Stiles," he says, irritated. He didn't drive for 35 minutes to watch Stiles set things on fire. He goes out of his way to avoid those kind of scenarios. Being around large fires is the only time he, as Stiles would put, loses his shit.  
  
"Well, not yet," Stiles says, dropping his backpack on the ground and crouching beside it. He pulls a small camping light out and flicks it on. It draws months immediately, and he brushes them away, sputtering and looking almost healthy in the light's orange glow.  
 Derek remains rooted in place, struck by sadness he's glad Stiles can't smell. Stiles is seventeen. He should be camping. Sneaking into the woods with Scott. Trying cigarettes. Talking about sex. Annoying people.  
  
Instead, he's digging through his backpack feverishly, mumbling something Derek can't make out until he abruptly can. His hands go ice-shock cold. "What?"  
  
"I said I figured out the perfect combo," Stiles says, sharply, like he doesn't want to repeat himself. "Boom boom." He does a low voice, something from a video game. "Fatality." Glass makes a musical little clink in the bag. He's talking too fast. "It has to be the letharia vulpina first. But a big dose. Everything we have left. I'm talking night night time for everyone dose. It can't get out of me, you know, into you or whoever, if it's knocked on its ass that hard. I can take it down with me."  
  
Derek's vision goes spotty at the edges as he stands very still, watching Stiles lay out a tea towel like he's setting a picnic.  
  
"You do the second set of injections after that. It's basically just a muscle relaxer. It stops, um, respiration." He looks up at Derek and swallows. "Okay? It's fine. I won't feel it."  
  
"Why don't I just use my claws," Derek says, his ears ringing. He's dizzy, sick.  
  
Stiles blinks, curls in on himself almost imperceptibly, like he's picturing it. "I guess you could." He glances at the shed. "Once everything's burned no one's gonna be able to tell the difference either way."  
  
"Are you kidding me, Stiles?" Derek doesn't make the conscious decision to move. He doesn't even feel the momentum until after he's thrown Stiles a solid ten feet. By the time Stiles pushes up onto his hands and knees, spitting leaves and dirt out of his mouth, Derek's already pocketed the letharia vulpina serum. The other vials, marked with words Derek doesn't know, fly against the nearest tree and smash to bits, leaving gleaming wet spots on the bark.  
  
"God damn it, Derek!" Stiles shouts, scrambling to the tree, limping and red-faced. He stares at the glittering, broken glass embedded in the wood. "Do you know how hard it was to steal that?"  
  
"Stiles."  
  
"Okay," Stiles says, rounding on him, snarling like an angry, scared boy and nothing like a demon. "It wasn't that hard. But what the fuck is your problem?"  
  
Derek shoves him into the tree, heedless of the glass, and kisses him.  
  
It's a dick move. He knows it is. But he's angry enough to forget that he can't fix things by loving them, and he's never known how to say it or show it or feel it the way normal people do and if there's anyone on Earth as fucked up as he feels inside, it has to be Stiles, it has to be this boy who smells like misery.  
  
Stiles stiffens, and when Derek pulls back, feeling like he's carving his own heart out, Stiles looks afraid. Of him.  
  
Derek braces both arms against the tree, brackets him in. "What?"  
  
"Don't do this." Stiles takes a breath, like he's gathering himself up for a last stand, and goes hard with anger. "Get out of Derek."  
  
"Seriously?" Derek lets his claws bite into the tree. "You think I have to be _possessed by an evil spirit_ to kiss you?"  
  
"You don't even _like_ me!" Stiles punches at Derek's chest and stomach, ineffectively, which probably means he's ruling out demon possession.  
  
"And that's why you asked me to do this?"  
  
"Uh?"  
  
"You think I don't like you — so very much — that I'd come out to the woods and put you to sleep like a Golden Retriever. And then," Derek can taste the iciness in his voice. "Set. Your body. On fire?"  
  
"That's what they do with a fox in a trap. They put it down. Someone has to." Stiles holds Derek's gaze for two harsh, whistling breaths and looks away, his entire body shuddering. "Okay it wasn't the best plan ever. But I'm running out of options here."  
  
"No, you're not." Derek's anger starts to subside, and he feels heavy and tired in its wake. "You could have found a way to do it yourself." A lethal injection device is well within the limits of Stiles' cleverness.  
  
Stiles slides down the tree. There's blood on the glass, tiny crimson droplets where Derek pushed him into the shards. He drops his head to his knees, cups his fingers over his ears and shakes like he's waging war against something trying to claw up out of him. "I didn't want to do it alone," he says, his voice a soft, miserable sound.  
  
Derek picks the glass from Stiles' shoulders. It's not much — hardly more than splinters. There may have been a time that Stiles' blood worried him, but they're past that now. He's gone to bed with the scent of it under his nails, lingering at his mouth.  
  
"Can I hold you?"  
  
"Why?" Stiles asks, earning himself a gentle punch to the shoulder.  
  
"Answer me."  
  
"Yes." Stiles whispers. But he doesn't help. It's like he doesn't know how, like he forgot.  
  
Derek has to muscle him up onto his lap, brace him between his legs, tuck his head down. It's uncomfortable and strange until it isn't at all, until Stiles head is crammed safely against his shoulder, and he's got his arms tight around him.  
  
The camp light shuts off with a click just loud enough to startle Stiles. He hugs back like he's scared of the dark. He probably is. Derek is a little now, too, after everything.  
  
"I'm right here," Derek says. He kisses Stiles' neck where his skin is bruised, where the poison feathers under his skin like a blessing.  
  
"Dude, with the kissing."  
  
"You don't like it?"  
  
A quick, jerky sob, hot at Derek's shoulder. "Of course I like it."  
  
It's selfish to want Stiles to understand, but Derek says, "I do too."  
  
The forest is silent around them. Derek listens to the dissonant symphony of Stiles' breathing and his stubborn heartbeat.  
  
"I don't want to do this anymore," Stiles moans, and Derek knows he doesn't mean the way they're holding each other, or the way Derek's lips stay close to his ear like a secret. "I can't do this anymore. I can't do this, Derek."  
  
He doesn't cry hard, not with the violence of grief. It's a tired, broken sound that terrifies Derek more than the clinical precision Stiles tried to adopt when he set out the tools of his own demise.  
  
"You can do it," Derek says, feeling cruel, hating the way Stiles shakes his head, cries harder in his arms. Stiles can do it, he can keep going. Derek isn't going to let him do anything less.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for suicide: Stiles wants Derek to help him commit suicide by lethal injection in order to stop the Nogitsune. Derek stops him before he can get started. 
> 
> Derek kisses Stiles briefly without consent. Stiles balks because he thinks Derek is possessed.


End file.
